And as a Morgan, it was her responsibility to safeguard her and her family’s reputation, or tomorrow’s presentation would go down in flames. Her reputation where Shane was concerned was hanging on by a thread as it was. Surely, he wouldn’t want a scandal to interfere with his hotel’s grand opening.
But when did it stop? Would Maverick be content with the first payment, or would he drag this out until Cecelia was broke and her business was bankrupted?
Cecelia clutched her head in her hands and fought off a pending migraine. She’d suddenly found herself stuck between a rock and a hard place, and there was no easy way out of this. She either paid Maverick, or the truth of her adoption would be spread all over town. The clock was ticking.
She wasn’t sure what her path forward would be, but Cecelia knew what she was doing next. In her life whenever a crisis arose, Cecelia always called her daddy. This conversation, however, was one that needed to be had in person. She didn’t know how Maverick had found out about her adoption, but if her phone lines were tapped or her computer was being monitored, she couldn’t risk anything but face-to-face communication.
* * *
It took Cecelia over an hour for her to reach her parents’ mansion outside Houston. It was nearly ten o’clock by the time she arrived, but her parents would still be awake. As expected, she found her father sitting in his library. He was reading a book and smoking one of his favorite cigars.
Brent Morgan looked up in surprise when he noticed his daughter standing in the doorway of his library. “What are you doing here, sweetheart? Your mother didn’t tell me were stopping by tonight.”
Cecelia took a few steps into her father’s favorite room and took a seat in the leather chair across from him. “She doesn’t know I’m here. I’m in trouble, Daddy.”
Furrowing his brow, he set aside his book and stubbed out his cigar. “What is it? Are you and Chip having problems?”
“No, this isn’t about Chip.” With a sigh, Cecelia told her father about the message she had received. His expression had morphed from concerned, to angry, to anxious as she spoke.
“I’ve got twenty-four hours to wire them twenty-five thousand dollars, or everyone is going to know the truth.”
“Our family can’t afford a scandal like this. And imagine the pain this would bring to the Ashfords. Surely this isn’t what you want. You’re just going to have to pay him,” he said, matter-of-factly.
Cecelia hated being put in a position where she had no options, and being under Maverick’s thumb was the last place she wanted to be. The only real way to combat blackmail was by exposing the truth before the attacker could. If they beat Maverick to the punch they could put their own spin on her adoption and why they’d lied about it.
“Are you sure, Daddy? I mean, I know you and Mother were trying to protect me, but I’m a grown woman now. I’d rather the story not get out. However, would it be the end of the world if people discovered I was adopted? Does it change anything, really?”
“It absolutely does!” her father said with his face flushing red, making his salt-and-pepper hair appear more starkly white against his skin. “We’ve lied to everyone we know for thirty years. This would ruin our reputation. And what would the Ashfords think? They wouldn’t understand. Neither would my customers or my friends. I could lose business. Hell, you could get thrown out of the Texas Cattleman’s Club. It’s social suicide, and your mother’s heart couldn’t take the scandal. No,” he insisted. “This stays a secret. Period. I will loan you the money if you need it to pay the blackmailer, but you will pay him.”
Cecelia noted the finality in her father’s tone. It had been the same when she was an unruly child, the same when she was a teenager testing her boundaries. She was an adult now, but Brent Morgan was still in charge. She didn’t have the nerve to go against him then, and she certainly didn’t have the nerve to do it now. She’d come here for his advice, and she’d be a fool not to take it.
“No, I have the money. I’ll make the transfer in the morning. I just hope it is enough to put an end to all of this.”
“It has to be,” her father said. “I refuse to have our family turned into laughingstocks.”
Cecelia sighed in resignation and got up from her seat. “I’ll take care of it, Daddy.”
* * *
Deacon Chase turned his restored 1965 Corvette Stingray down the main street of Royal, Texas. It’d been thirteen years since he’d looked at this town in his rearview mirror and swore he’d never set foot in this narrow-minded, Texas dust trap again. The whole flight over from France, he questioned why he was coming back. Yes, it was good business, and working with his old friend from high school, Shane Delgado, had always been a pleasant experience. But when Shane mentioned that he wanted to build a resort in their hometown of Royal, he should have passed.
Then again, when else would he get the chance to show the town and the people who rejected him that he was better than them? Sure, back then he’d just been a poor kid with few prospects. He was the son of a grocery store clerk and the local car mechanic. He’d gotten to go to private school with all the rich kids only because his parents had been adamant that Deacon make something of himself, and they’d put every dime they had toward his schooling. Even then he had worked in the cafeteria to bridge the gap in tuition. Nobody else had expected much out of him, and those were the people who even acknowledged he existed. As far as most the residents of Royal were concerned, Deacon had never fit in, never would fit in and needed to accept his station in life.
No one had expected him to take his hobby of restoring cars and parlay the skills and money into restoring houses. They certainly hadn’t expected him to take the profit from those houses and put it into renovating hotels. Now the kid who worked in the cafeteria was a billionaire and the owner of the most glamorous resort in Cannes, France, the Hotel de Rêve, among others.
The only person in Royal who had ever believed in him was Cecelia. Back in high school, she’d pushed him to be the best person he could be. Considering that she’d held herself to such high standards, he’d been flattered that she saw so much potential in him when most of the people in high school either ignored him or taunted him. Cecelia had said he was a diamond in the rough. Her diamond in the rough.
It’d certainly blown the minds of all the boys at school that Cecelia had chosen Deacon instead of one of them. What could he offer her after all? A free carton of milk with her lunch? It turned out that he’d had plenty to offer her. He could still remember how many hours they’d spent lying in the back of his pickup truck talking. Kissing. Dreaming aloud about their future together. Deacon and Cecelia had had big plans for their lives after graduation.
Step one had been to get the hell out of Royal, Texas. Step two had been to live happily-ever-after.
As Deacon came to a stop at the traffic light at the intersection of Main Street and First Avenue, he shook his head in disgust. He had been a fool to think any of that would ever happen. He might have fancy hotels and expensive suits, sports cars and a forty-foot yacht docked in the French Riviera, but Deacon knew, and everybody else knew, that Cecelia was too good for him.
It hadn’t taken long for Cecelia to figure that out, too.
The light turned green, and Deacon continued down the road to where his father’s old garage used to be. When he’d made his first million, Deacon had moved his parents out of Royal and into a nice subdivision in central Florida. There, they could enjoy their early retirement without the meddling of the snooty residents of Royal. His father had sold the shop, and now a new shopping center was sitting where it used to be. A lot had changed in the last thirteen years.
Deacon couldn’t help but wonder how much Cecelia had changed. He tried not to cyberstalk her, but from time to time he couldn’t help looking over the Houston society pages to see what she was up to. The grainy black-and-white pictures hardly did her beauty justice, he was certain. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been a young woman, barely eighteen. Even then, Deacon had been certain that she was the most beautiful woman he would ever see in person. He would bet that time had been kind to his Cecelia.